Rather His Own Man

The comprehensive, brilliantly told, gloriously candid autobiography from Australia's inimitable Geoffrey Robertson. In this book he pays homage to his family and an incredible career across the world. He describes his childhood as a Bondi baby turned Eastwood boy and imbues the early chapters with fascinating family history against a backdrop of beautifully drawn social history - of the Menzies years, the restrictive fifties and sixties that propelled Geoffrey away from Australia to the UK. He talks honestly about girlfriends, including Nigella Lawson and Jennifer Byrne, and of course of meeting and marrying Kathy Lette. He writes movingly about his children, Julius and Georgina, and the challenges of bringing up a son on the autistic spectrum, his great pride at both his children's achievements. There are stories of Geoffrey's battles for student rights at Sydney Uni; his move to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar; and his early career from the Oz trial through Spycatcher; devising and broadcasting Hypotheticals; his death penalty cases; his many freedom of speech fights; the work of his London chambers, who were forerunners in legal circles in the nineties when they set up (and who now employ Amal Clooney). He writes about Assange, Snowden, corruption at Scotland Yard and MI5, and in many different regimes around the world - Geoffrey has worked on cases against African, East European and southern and central American dictators. This is a riveting read with scores of brilliant stories spanning an extraordinary career of nearly fifty years.

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Geoffrey Robertson QC is a leading human rights lawyer and a UN war-crimes judge. He has been counsel in many notable Old Bailey trials, has defended hundreds of men facing death sentences in the Caribbean, and has won landmark rulings on civil liberty from the highest courts in Britain, Europe and the Commonwealth. He was involved in cases against General Pinochet and Hastings Banda, and in the training of judges who tried Saddam Hussein. His book Crimes Against Humanity has been an inspiration for the global justice movement, and he is the author of an acclaimed memoir, The Justice Game, and the textbook Media Law. He is married to Kathy Lette. Mr Robertson is Head of Doughty Street Chambers, a Master of the Middle Temple, a Recorder and visiting professor at Queen Mary College, University of London.Geoffrey Robertson QC has had a distinguished career as a trial counsel and human rights advocate. He has handled hundreds of death sentence appeals; prosecuted Hastings Banda and defended Salman Rushdie; acted for terrorist suspects at the Old Bailey and for Human Rights Watch in the proceedings against General Pinochet. He was counsel to the Antiguan Royal Commission which exposed arms traffic to the Medellin drugs cartel and was involved in training the judges to try Saddam Hussein. He serves as an appeal judge for the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone and has authored landmark decisions on the limits of amnesties, the illegality of recruiting child soldiers and other critical issues in the development of international criminal law.Geoffrey Robertson is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers and sits as a recorder (part-time judge) in London, where he is a Master of the Middle Temple and visiting professor in human rights law at Queen Mary